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 place called the Come, in the county of Hereford,’ London, 1679, 4to; reprinted in Foley's ‘Records,’ iv. 463. 6. ‘A Letter written to a Friend concerning Popish Idolatrie’ (anon.), London, 1674, 4to; reprinted 1679. 7. ‘The Legacy of Herbert, Lord Bishop of Hereford, to his Diocess, or a short Determination of all Controversies we have with the Papists, by God's Holy Word,’ London, 1679, 4to, contained in three sermons, to which is added ‘A Supplement to the preceding Sermons: together with a Tract concerning the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.’ 8. ‘Some Animadversions on a Book [by Dr. Thomas Burnet] intituled “The Theory of the Earth,”’ London, 1685, 8vo. 9. ‘A short Discourse concerning the reading of his Majesties late Declaration in the Churches,’ London, 1688, 4to; reprinted in the ‘Somers Tracts.’

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 309, 880, Fasti, ii. 52, 237, 397; Biog. Brit. (Kippis); Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 472, 478, 511, iii. 86, 402; Wotton's Baronetage (1771), ii. 360; Godwin, De Præsulibus (Richardson), p. 497; Salmon's Lives of the English Bishops, p. 275; Jones's Popery Tracts, pp. 97, 321, 432; Willis's Survey of Cathedrals, ii. 529; Luttrell's Historical Relation of State Affairs, ii. 235; Bedford's Blazon of Episcopacy, p. 55; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 555; Addit. MS. 11049, ff. 12, 14; Wadsworth's English Spanish Pilgrime, p. 21.]  CROFT, HERBERT, bart. (1751–1816), author, was born at Dunster Park, Berkshire, on 1 Nov. 1751, being the eldest son of Herbert Croft of Stifford in Essex, the receiver to the Charterhouse, who died at Tutbury, Staffordshire, 7 July 1785, aged 67, by his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Young of Midhurst, Sussex, and the grandson of Francis Croft, second son of the first baronet. On the death, without legitimate issue, in 1797, of Sir John Croft, the fourth baronet, he succeeded to that honour, but, unfortunately for his success in life, the third baronet had cut off the entail, the family estates had passed into other hands, and Croft Castle itself had been sold to the father of Thomas Johnes, the translator of Froissart. Pecuniary pressure hampered him from the commencement of his life, but his difficulties were increased by his volatile character, which prevented him from adhering to any definite course of action. In March 1771 he matriculated at University College, Oxford, when Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, was his college tutor; and as his intention was to have adopted the law as his profession, he accordingly entered himself at Lincoln's Inn, where he became the constant companion, in pleasure if not in work, of Thomas Maurice, the historian of Hindostan, and Frederick Young, the son of the author of the ‘Night Thoughts.’ Want of means did not allow him to continue in the profession of the law, though he was called to the bar, and is said to have practised in Westminster Hall with some success, and about 1782 he returned to University College, Oxford, and under the advice of Lowth, the bishop of London, determined upon taking orders in the English church. In April 1785 he took the degree of B.C.L., and in 1786 his episcopal patron conferred on him the vicarage of Prittlewell, in Essex, a living which he retained until his death in 1816; but for some years after his appointment he lived at Oxford, busying himself in the collection of the materials for his proposed English dictionary. The undertaking which Croft prosecuted, as must be readily acknowledged, with great energy, involved him for many years in labours entirely unremunerative. As he was naturally lavish in money matters, and his whole income consisted of his small vicarage in Essex, producing about 100l. a year, and the balance of the salary assigned to his position of chaplain to the garrison of Quebec, where his personal attendance was not enforced, his expenditure exceeded his means. His first wife, Sophia, daughter and coheiress of Richard Cleave, who bore him three daughters, died 8 Feb. 1792, and on 25 Sept. 1795 he was married by special license by Thomas Percy, bishop of Dromore, at Ham House, Petersham, to Elizabeth, daughter of David Lewis of Malvern Hall in Warwickshire, who died at Lord Dysart's house in Piccadilly, 22 Aug. 1815, without issue. The marriage was celebrated at this famous mansion through the circumstance that one of the bride's sisters was married to Lionel, then the fourth earl of Dysart, its owner, and that another sister was married to Wilbraham Tollemache, afterwards the fifth earl of Dysart. In the ‘European Magazine,’ August 1797, pp. 115–16, is a set of curious verses by Croft, extolling the bride and lauding these alliances, which is entitled ‘On returning the key of the gardens at Ham House to the Earl of Dysart.’ Several of his letters are in the Egerton MSS. 2185–6 at the British Museum, and from one of them (2186, ff. 97–8) it appears that on the day after his second marriage he was arrested for debt and thrust into the common gaol at Exeter. The climax was now reached. He was obliged to withdraw to Hamburg, and his library was sold at King's in King Street, Covent Garden, in August 1797. During his residence abroad he was presented by the king of Sweden with a handsome gold medal, an engraving of which by Basire was pub-